ALUMNI PROFILE

Always Floss

In case her dream of dancing on Broadway fizzled, Marilyn Braddock’s, Arts ´77, father insisted she go to college. His insight was prescient.

By Sarah Painter Koziol, Arts '92

Today, she is a commander in the U.S. Navy Dental Corps. Onboard the USS George Washington (CVN-73), a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier stationed in Norfolk, Va., Braddock may seem a thousand years from her days as a Marquette cheerleader. Though remembered by others as head cheerleader, she doesn’t claim that title. “I was just the
loudest,” she says and laughs.

Braddock is the Navy’s only active African-American prosthodontist. Her Navy commitment, which began when she needed financial help to continue her education and chose the Navy for its uniforms, has taken priority through the years over her thriving private practice and part-time teaching career. Braddock is passionate about her sub-specialty of maxillofacial prosthetic dentistry, which involves rebuilding parts of the face with prosthetic devices when plastic surgery cannot do further repair. Her patients have been physically altered by cancer, severe accidents and medical treatments. “Patients in these conditions are particularly thankful to those who help them. Their circumstances make you understand and appreciate your own mortality,” she says.